Didascalicon, Book IV: the order and number of the divine books
Chapter VIII. The account of the divine books
The Pentateuch is so called from the five volumes. For pente in Greek is five, teuchos is called volume. Genesis is so called because the generation of the world is contained in it. Exodus from the going out of the children of Israel from Egypt. Leviticus because it sets forth the ministries of the Levites and the diversity of victims. The book is called Numbers because in it the tribes going out of Egypt are numbered, and the forty-two stations through the desert. Deuteros is a Greek word of three syllables, and is interpreted second, nomos is interpreted law. Hence it is called Deuteronomy, as it were the second law, because in it are repeated the things that in the preceding three were said more diffusely. In the book of Josue, which the Hebrews call Josue ben Nun, the land of promise is divided to the people. The book of Judges is so called from the princes who judged the people of Israel before there were kings in the same people. To this some join the history of Ruth in one volume. The book of Samuel is so called because it describes his nativity and priesthood and deeds. Although it also contains the history of Saul and David, both are referred to Samuel, because he anointed both. Malach in Hebrew is interpreted in Latin king, hence it is called Malachim, because it arranges in order the kings of Juda and of the Israelite nation and their deeds. Isaias published his book as an evangelist rather than a prophet, whose whole context proceeds in eloquent prose. The canticle, however, runs in hexameter and pentameter verse. Jeremias likewise his book, with the Threni, which we call Lamentations, because they are used in sadder and funereal matters, in which he composed a fourfold alphabet in different meters, of which the first two are written as it were in Sapphic meter, because a heroic comma closes three little verses which are linked together and begin with only one letter. The third alphabet is written in trimeter, and the same three verses begin with threefold letters. The fourth alphabet is like the first and second. Ezechiel has a beginning and end that are more obscure. The volume of the twelve Prophets is one. The beginnings and ends of the book of Job among the Hebrews are interwoven in prose. The middle of it, however, from the place where he says: Let the day perish wherein I was born (Job 3), to the place where he says: Therefore I reprehend myself, and do penance (Job 42), all runs in heroic meter. The book of Psalms is called in Greek psalterion, in Hebrew nabla, in Latin organum. It is called psalter because, when one prophet sang to the psaltery, the choir answered in harmony. This book they comprise in five divisions and one volume of psalms. David composed the Psalms, but Esdras afterwards arranged them. All the psalms and the lamentations of Jeremias and almost all the canticles of the Scriptures are composed in meter among the Hebrews, as Jerome, Origen, Josephus and Eusebius of Caesarea testify. As with Quintus Flaccus the Latin and Pindar the Greek, some run in iambic, now shine in Sapphic, proceeding in trimeter or tetrameter. Scripture most plainly teaches that Solomon was called by three names: Jedidiah, that is beloved of the Lord, because the Lord loved him; Coheleth, that is Ecclesiastes; Ecclesiastes is called in the Greek tongue he who gathers an assembly, that is the Church, whom we can call a preacher, who speaks not specially to one but to the whole assembly of the people. Moreover he was called peaceful because there was peace in his reign. He therefore published three volumes according to the number of names: the first, which in Hebrew is entitled Masloth, in Greek parabole, in Latin Proverbs, because in it he showed under comparative similitude the figures of words and the images of truth. These parables, from the end, from the place where he says: Who shall find a valiant woman? (Prov. 31), are woven in alphabetical order, as the Lamentations of Jeremias and certain other canticles of Scripture. The second, which in Hebrew is Coheleth, in Greek Ecclesiastes, in Latin preacher, because his discourse is directed not specially to one, as in the Proverbs, but to all generally, as to the whole assembly and Church. The third, Sir Hassirim, that is the Canticle of Canticles, which is as it were an epithalamium, that is a nuptial song of Christ and the Church. In the Proverbs he teaches the little child and as it were instructs him in duties by sentences, hence the discourse to the son is often repeated. In Ecclesiastes he forms a man of mature age, that he may think nothing in the things of the world to be perpetual, but all that we see to be fleeting and brief. At last the now consummated man, who has trodden down the world and is prepared, he joins in the Canticle of Canticles to the embraces of the Bridegroom. Without doubt the philosophers also instruct their followers by this order of doctrines: that they first teach ethics, then interpret physics, and lead those who have made progress in these up to theology. Daniel is held among the Hebrews not among the prophets but among the hagiographa. According to the Seventy interpreters the Catholic Church does not read him, because he disagrees much from the truth. Daniel especially, and the prophet Abdias, and one part of Jeremias, were written in Hebrew letters but in the Chaldaic tongue. Job also has very much in common with the Arabic language. Daniel among the Hebrews has neither the history of Susanna, nor the hymn of the three children, nor the fables of Bel and the dragon. Paralipomenon is so called in Greek, which we can call of things omitted, or of the remainder; because what in the Law or the books of Kings was omitted or not fully related is repeated in this summarily and briefly. In Hebrew it is called Dabriamin, which is interpreted Words of days; which we can more significantly call the Chronicle of the whole divine history. The book of Esdras is the fourth, in which the discourses of the same Esdras and of Nehemias are contained in one volume. The second, third and fourth are apocrypha. The book which is entitled the Wisdom of Solomon is called Wisdom because in it the coming of Christ (who is the wisdom of the Father) and his passion are evidently expressed. The book of Jesus son of Sirach is called Ecclesiasticus because it is given, with great care and reason, to the discipline of religious conversation of the whole Church. Of these two Jerome speaks thus: There is circulated the Panaretos of Jesus son of Sirach, and another pseudepigraphic book which is entitled the Wisdom of Solomon, of which the former I found Hebrew, entitled not Ecclesiasticus as among us but Parables. With it were joined Ecclesiastes and the Canticle of Canticles, that they might equal the likeness of Solomon not only in the number of books but in the kind of matters. The second is nowhere among the Hebrews, because the style itself savors of Greek eloquence. And some of the old writers affirm that this is of the Jew Philo. As, therefore, the Church reads Judith and Tobias and the books of the Machabees, but does not receive them among the canonical Scriptures, so let her read these two volumes for the edification of the people, not for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas. As there are twenty-two elements by which we write in Hebrew all we speak, and by their beginnings the human voice is comprehended, so twenty-two volumes are reckoned, by which, as by letters and rudiments, the infancy of the just man, still tender and nursing, is instructed in the teaching of God. Some, reckoning separately the history of Ruth and the lamentations of Jeremias among the hagiographa, and adding these two to the preceding twenty-two, number twenty-four books of the Old Law; in figure and number of the twenty-four elders who in the Apocalypse adore the Lamb.